Picturesque Kashmir / by Arthur Neve ; illustrated by Geoffroy W. Millais.

  • Arthur Neve
Date:
1900
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: Picturesque Kashmir / by Arthur Neve ; illustrated by Geoffroy W. Millais. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    the most heautifiil In the world. No railroad or jj^reat hotels are seen to scar the face of nature. “ The Emperor Jehan^ir is said to have specially admired it, and to have declared that the beantv of the reflections and the colonriim’ of the water hy reason of the flowers and w'ater-lilies exceeded anything he had read of in the descriptions of Paradise ! In those days they used to light fires on the mountains and enjoy the splendour of the reflections. He looked on the hills, with their })urple I’ocks and velvet herbage appearing even more somhi'e and glorious when reflected In the water; on the broad sheets of water, purpled by the lotus In the day and whitened hy the water-lllv by moonlight; on the darkness of night, heightened by the lx)nfires of which the blaze was repeated on the glittering surface of the water, and said, ‘Truly this is the paradise of whicli priests have prophesied and poets sung—Aqar Firdus ha-ru-i-zamin asf, hamin asf u liamin , / J a St! Yet the richest l)eauty of all is not when “audacious ])lum succeeds lavish cheriy ” in spring blossom, nor when the kingly lotus flowers crown the w'aves, Imt It is when the chenar “ blushes like the parting day ere the summer fades.” The blaze of colour in the autumn surpasses descri])tion. The chenar trees range from cadmium yellow to madder carmine, tints with which the lemon of the poplars and the silvery green of the whllows harmonise. The crisp autumnal grass on the mountains, when touched hy frost, becomes orange and brick red, lighting up towards sunset into a ruddy glow which
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